Tuesday, Darlene and Jon ran errands. The GPS kept freezing up on us. We decided it was the last straw so we pulled into a nearby BestBuy to exchange it. The good news is they said they didn't think they had any of the same model in stock, but we could exchange it for one the same price as we paid. Thanks to progressing technology we were able to get a much better one for the same price we paid for the old one. And somehow we ended up with a $20 credit. So in the end, we walked out with a newer, better unit and a $20 gift card! Darlene is amazing. How does she do stuff like that? Jon tries that and he ends up on the wrong end of the deal. We ate at the Pink Cow for lunch. OK. It's really called the Pin Kaow, but wouldn't you call it the pink cow, too?!
Wednesday, Darlene went in for a PET scan. Yep. She's already had her CAT scanned, but they didn't find what they were looking for, so they went for the more generic PET scan. Still waiting on the Doc to tell us the results. Is there a DOG scan, too? Then Darlene left for Utah.
Darlene has only been gone since Wednesday, but it seems like forever. She drove up to Lehi to help out Chris and Jen. Jen had a tonsillectomy on Wednesday morning and would be down for awhile, so Darlene went up to help with their kids for 10 days. She'll be back on Sunday. That afternoon, Jon took Bryan to pick up his retainers. Yep that means he got his braces off! He has a $10,000 smile. Literally. All we can say to all our children is, "You better brush your teeth or Dad will come back from the grave and hide your dentures!" He is loving life and of course, all the girls noticed!
Thursday, Jon picked up Kimmee from school and took her to violin lessons. He dozed on the hard folding chair outside the practice room. Then, he cooked burgers on the grill for dinner.
Bryan went on a campout Friday afternoon. It was just him, one other priest and three adult leaders. We are SO grateful for leaders that are willing to sacrifice a good night's sleep to go camping with two boys. These are some of the best YM leaders we have ever seen! We love them to death. He got back on Saturday while we were at the track meet.
Jon, Caiti, and Kimmee went to a track meet at UNLV on Saturday. Their cousin, Jake was here participating with Utah Valley University. It was his first collegiate level meet. He was scheduled to participate in the pole vault at 11:00 and the 110m dash at 1:00. The pole vault was delayed due to the hammer throw. The events were right next to each other and they didn't want them to interfere with each other. It turned out to be a wise decision because a couple of the hammer throws lacked a little guidance. It's beyond me how they can throw that thing in any desired direction after spinning round and round. It looked to me like a round of dizzy bat followed by shot put on a rope! A couple of the throws impacted the approach track for the pole vault. Nothing ruins your day like getting hit by a flying ball of steel while trying to pole vault! The delay caused Jake to miss the 100m dash. He wasn't too disappointed. He prefers the pole vault. Besides, those men were FAST! I think they ran around 10.41 seconds. I can almost make it from the couch to the fridge that fast!
Jake made his first height. If Jon remembers right, he missed on his first two attempts and made it on his third attempt. It was really close. He actually hit the bar. It bounced up and down, but somehow stayed in place. Onto the mat he flopped. Unfortunately, he didn't make his next height and was out of the competition. It was a big learning opportunity for him also to see the difference between High school and College level competition. I think his words were, "from big fish in a small pond to small fish, big pond." He is a freshman and has lots of time to improve to where he wants to be. He is a decathlete. Unfortunately, the decathlon was not offered at this meet. It's amazing he can do all those events well! Their seats were only about 10 feet away from the approach track! Great day! They all came home with some color in their faces from the sun. Jon's sunglasses gave him raccoon eyes. Caiti laughed at him.
A member in our ward took the EQ repelling on Saturday and invited everyone from the ward. Kimmee wanted to go (and so did Jon), but he had to work Friday night and wouldn't get home till 9:00am. Add that to the hour drive to the site and the fact he would be repelling on no sleep in the previous 36 hours equaled too high of a risk for him. He would have had to leave after 30 min in time to get to Jake's meet anyway. It just wasn't going to happen. Kimmee was ok with that because it meant she got to sleep in Saturday morning. It turned out to be a good thing they didn't go. Sadly, there was a tragic accident. A young father from a neighboring ward was going down the 70 foot cliff Aussie-style (face first) when his webbing broke. He free fell the last 20 feet or so and landed squarely on his face on the rocks. He had extremely serious injuries to his face and a compound fracture to his ankle. We were glad none of us were there (especially Kimmee) to see that. The ambulance took about 30 minutes to arrive. The men administered to him while they waited. They flew him out on a helicopter. I heard they operated on his ankle that evening. Tragic. Last we heard, he is recovering well.
On a much lighter note, Bryan went to Sadie Hawkins on Saturday night. Lilo picked him up around 5:30. They had a "formal" dinner from In-N-Out. Lilo called and talked to Kimmee to find out how Bryan liked his hamburger. They did a touch and go at the dance, just long enough to get pictures taken and then drove about town. They tried to go several places, but were turned away since they were under 18 (except Bryan) and curfew is at 6pm. They ended up playing miniature golf and then going to the Winterton's house. They had marshmallow fights with PVC pipe guns. Bryan said they went through six bags of mini-marshmallows! They had ice cream to finish off the evening. Everyone had a lot of fun.
Jon tried to stay up till Bryan got home, but it just wasn't going to happen. He didn't have to work Saturday night and hadn't had any real sleep in several days. After sleeping on the couch for a couple of hours pretending to watch TV, He gave up and went to bed. He awoke with a start at 2:30 realizing that Bryan hadn't checked in with me. He stumbled out of bed and down the hall to make sure he was home. He was. He checked on Kimmee and Caiti. Lastly, He checked in with the dog. Tosca assured him all was well in the house, so back into bed he crawled. In the morning he reiterated the need to check in with Mom or Dad when arriving late, NO MATTER WHAT TIME!
Yesterday was Fast Sunday. Jon got up early, browned the pot roast, cut up the veggies and dumped it all in the crock pot for dinner. He thought to himself, "Thanks Mom for teaching me how to cook!" It turned out swimmingly! Although, doesn't everything tastes better when fasting?
Good news! Jon is starting the last two weeks of graveyard shift for this cycle before he rotates back to day shift for the next six weeks. The bad news is he probably won't get to go to church for those six weeks. However, there is a rumor at work that in July he might permanently move to day shift and only have to work week days! That would be wonderful!
Until next week....
